


Spare the King

by Genuvalgum



Category: Black Panther (2018)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-25
Updated: 2018-02-25
Packaged: 2019-03-24 01:33:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13800573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Genuvalgum/pseuds/Genuvalgum
Summary: Instead of Erik dying at the end, an exploration in to the story should he live without yeilding his title as King but still being held responsible for the loss of Heart-shaped herb.





	Spare the King

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own this universe or characters. Hell even the plot isn't really mine but inspired by a few fics already in this fandom with this relationship. I am more interested to take this to the political ramifications of Erik's actions.

The first time T'Challa entered the ancestral plane, after his fight with the Jabari leader, he was a young man still looking for T'Chaka's approval. It was brimming with the life he had sworn to protect. From the trees, the crisp air on his skin, the smells of Africa burning in his nose and the red soils his feet stood upon left welcome stains in his soul. Every part of the ancestral plane felt like he was at peace. Whispers of it danced in the breeze and the sun dying in the last vestiges of daylight on T'Chaka's face. A comfort he hadn't even realized was missing since the King had died fell into place. It was everything he had heard promised from priests of Bast. An eternal plane to run on with a horizon tattooed with the Wakandan sunset. He left feeling a false assurance that he could handle the strains of being King, but the first sight of Erik in his home had ripped that comfort away. Standing brazenly, and unrepentant of addressing the royalty of his birth nation. Uncaring of a family that hadn't known each other in years, throwing a challenge for a birthright that was forfeited by their fathers. A usurper. Westernized, and bastardized by his own upbringing and polluted pride driven mutilation to honor his conquests. A foolish man driven to think that unending destruction, assassination and war meant he could possibly lead the people of Wakanada. It took nothing to destroy but stripped every reserve to repair and build. 

The second time T’Challa entered the beautiful space T'Chaka's weathered face greeting him didn't fill him with the quiet safety it had before. Each deep fold looked heavier. His skin leathery and sun bathed darker in a never ending light. T’Challa looked on the crowd of past Kings, and sons blessed by Bast to protect his country, and he couldn't see the space for N'Jobu. There was no doubt in T'Challa's mind that after N'Jadaka died he would not rest in his ancestral home either, amongst his fellow warriors, his family, still lost to his rage. Rage he had branded into his body with the tally of his kills. So much death and destruction, his cousin had waged against any enemy. Lost in his own grief and twisted radicals. His father had also been lost; left in a foreign land forgotten. A monster birthed from a lie to stop a taint from entering the Wakandan Nation.

T’Challa couldn’t write Erik off. Erik, N'Jadaka, followed the same, if not twisted ideals that Nakia believed in. She had worked undercover and measured the extremes of her actions and results to protect the stranded brethren strewn over the world. Yet, she had never fallen into such a twisted hatred that bred N’Jadaka. As King, Erik had already led his people nearly into a civil war and mass destruction. Erik was too solitary a creature to value the people of Wakanda only what Wakanda could give to his home. His brothers and sisters beaten down in a system that was taught to hate themselves and to thank each and every basic sense of decency showed to them. To worship the fair skinned, the elite, the wealthy, and those lucky enough to have crawled out of their circumstance to stand on greatness. No. T’Challa understood Erik. It came from a lifetime of watching his father try a breakdown the barriers between Wakanda and the world with peace and acceptance. But it was too little to late, plenty of War Dogs, and other extremists existed in Wakanda. So many wanted to reach out and help their brothers outside. 

Allowing N'Jadaka to remove the spear from his chest would spell another end to the great royal line, and without Erik the people who had those extreme ideals would fester under Wakanda and another battle would errupt. T’Challa knew that no matter how civilized, literate, wealthy Wakanda was there would always be suppressed hatred for the outside world breathing into his nation. N’Jadaka was the just the match, a monster tearing the fabric of peace but at least now the wounds were out in the open and the noose could be loosened on their brother’s on the outside. Wakanda should never have stayed out for so long. But N’Jadaka’s way would not be Wakanda’s introduction to the world. 

"I won't spend my life in a cage," Killmonger hissed breathless and pained drifiting above T’Challa’s hands. "Nor do I expect you too, you have been caged by your fear and rage long enough. No, you will atone for what you have done," T'Challa responded using the blade to staunch Erik’s mortal wound. The panther continued, removing his Kimoyo beads and activating a sleeping dart to land in the contender's vulnerable neck, after all, "N'Jadaka you were meant to serve Wakanda, and your death means nothing to this nation now." As Erik slipped into oblivion, pain disappearing under the cover of tranquilizers, he hazily watched the half suited panther in the underbelly of the cave against a background of the Wakandan sunset spilling on bloody clay soil. N'Jobu hadn't done those sunsets justice was his last thought.

T'Challa triggered his head protector to form, and picked up the limp-limbed form of his cousin. Weary of jostling the blade piercing his cousins chest. It was best to get him home to Shuri as soon as possible to save N'Jadaka's life. After the risk of Erik's continued existence could be calculated and a suitable punishment fitting for a desecrator to Bast's legacy would need to be paid. After all, N'Jadaka had come to his home, he took the heart-shaped herb and tried to leave Wakanda open and vulnerable to war. Removing the heir to protect Bast's legacy and trampling on every tradition they had. All great crimes and even a royal, even a King, would still be punished for those crimes by the nation. From the youngest babe to the laim and disabled everyone would take part in Erik’s sentence but the Killmonger needed to be neutralized first.

**Author's Note:**

> Getting some writing practice in as my limited skills are getting rusty. Also all my knowledge of Wakanda comes from the movie. I have no other source material. Let me know your thoughts. Also looking for a beta reader.


End file.
